1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to an apparatus, system and method for managing radio resources and, more particularly, to an apparatus, system and method for managing radio resources based on a media independent services (MIS) framework.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, various wireless communication technologies have been developed, and various heterogeneous wireless networks have been deployed and used in the same area. Accordingly, a plurality of communication technologies has shared the same frequency band and thus frequency interference has increased, with the result that the quality of experience (QoE) of users has been degraded. That is, since access points of a wireless local area network (WLAN) are installed and operated in close areas and a gradually increasing number of small-sized cells, such as femtocells, are installed and operated, a network environment has changed to a dynamic environment. In contrast, radio resource control and management are statically performed, and thus do not desirably deal with dynamic network installation and channel environments.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, as the number of access points 1 and 2 increases, the possibility that interference occurs between terminals 3 and 4 also increases. Meanwhile, cell planning is a static radio resource management method that is designed to allocate radio resource when a wireless base station is installed and to rarely change radio resource thereafter. Because of this static cell planning, network control and management capable of efficiently dealing with the dynamically varying installation and channel environments of a network are not performed.
Furthermore, although various communication technologies have been developed, frequency resources are limited. Accordingly, there are many cases where a plurality of communication technologies shares the same frequency band. Therefore, frequency interference occurs between heterogeneous networks. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands of the industry-science-medical (ISM) band that are chiefly used by wireless local area networks (WLANs) are being used or will be used by other wireless communication technologies. The 2.4 GHz band is being used by Bluetooth technology, and thus frequency interference may occur between WLAN communication and Bluetooth communication. Part of the 5 GHz band is being used for cordless phone communication, and thus interference may occur between WLAN communication and codeless phone communication.
In the 5 GHz band, there is the possibility that frequency interference will occur between new heterogeneous networks. In the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), using the 5 GHz band as the additional frequency band of a cellular network is being discussed under the leadership of Qualcomm. If a cellular network uses the 5 GHz frequency band, interference may occur between cellular network communication and WLAN communication.
A conventional radio resource control and management method cannot deal with dynamically varying network and channel environments and frequency interference between heterogeneous networks. The conventional radio resource control and management method is a static radio resource control and management method that allocates radio resource only when an access point of a WLAN or a base station of a cellular network using the same radio access technology is installed, and thus cannot deal with dynamically varying heterogeneous network installation and channel environments. Therefore, there is a need for a dynamical, integrated method of controlling and managing the radio resource of heterogeneous networks that can deal with dynamically varying network installation and channel environments and frequency interference between heterogeneous networks.
As a related technology, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2008-0070699 discloses media independent handover (MIH) technology using an Ethernet operation, administration and maintenance (OAM) protocol.
As another related technology, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013-0294404 discloses technology for enabling the mobility control of a mobile terminal based on a network using a mobile router that performs the functions of a wireless base station and an access router while utilizing the existing network infrastructure of a service provider without change.